- Ireland: Regime to Ban Goods from Israeli Squats in Palestine’s Occupied West Bank
Source: US News & World Report
“Ireland aims to pass a law curbing goods trade with settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank by mid-July with Israel, some U.S. lawmakers and business groups opposing the move, Foreign Minister Helen McEntee said on Tuesday. Ireland’s government, one of the most outspoken critics of Israel’s war in Gaza, first promised to sanction Israeli settlements in October 2024. The legislation has since been held up by pressure from opposition politicians who aimed to extend the ban also to services trade, on one side, and international company lobbyists seeking to scrap the bill, on the other. Sources told Reuters last October that the bill was set to be limited to goods. Prime Minister Micheal Martin confirmed that last week and said widening the scope to services was neither ‘implementable’ nor ‘viable.'” (05/26/26)
- Netherlands: Regime blocks US company’s takeover of vital digital supplier
Source: Politico
“The Dutch government is blocking a United States-based company’s attempts to acquire a key online identification IT supplier. Dutch firm Solvinity runs a platform for the country’s DigiD app, which allows the country’s citizens to authenticate themselves online when they want to book a doctor’s appointment, buy a house or interact with public authorities. In November, U.S.-based Kyndryl announced it would acquire Solvinity, triggering concerns that a key Dutch online identification tool would fall under foreign control. Across Europe, there have been increased concerns about the bloc’s reliance on U.S. technology. … The decision comes a week before the European Commission is set to unveil its tech sovereignty package, a set of proposals to reduce Europe’s reliance on foreign technology in the areas of cloud, microchips and AI.” (05/26/26)
https://www.politico.eu/article/netherlands-blocks-us-takeover-vital-digital-supplier
- Accuser’s lawyer drops him as client in sex slavery lawsuit
Source: New York Post
“The high-flying lawyer repping disgraced former JPMorgan banker Chirayu Rana in his salacious sex-slave lawsuit has suddenly dropped his client — just hours before a court hearing, The Post has learned. Daniel Kaiser, who previously repped Jeffrey Epstein accusers, filed a consent to be ‘discharged’ as attorney for Rana just hours before they were due to appear in court on Tuesday. Shockingly, the document reveals that Rana does not have a new lawyer lined up, and will be representing himself ‘pro se’ until he decides to find a new attorney. … JPMorgan Chase executive Lorna Hajdini — who Rana claims turned him into a sex slave — has since filed defamation claims against him.” (05/26/26)
- Canada: Teen girl charged with arson after allegedly torching American baseball team’s charter bus
Source: Fox News
“A Canadian teenager is facing arson charges after authorities say she torched a charter bus belonging to an American professional baseball team during a road trip to Winnipeg, Canada. The Kane County Cougars, a U.S.-based independent professional baseball team, were traveling in Canada for games against the Winnipeg Goldeyes. On May 21, law enforcement agencies responded to the team’s bus engulfed in flames outside Blue Cross Park, according to Winnipeg Police Service. Authorities determined that the fire was intentionally set. Two teenagers were initially taken into custody. A 15-year-old girl has since been charged with arson causing damage to property and possession of incendiary material.” (05/25/26)
- KY: Massie files paperwork to run in 2028, says he hasn’t made a “final decision” about his political future
Source: NBC News
“Fresh off last week’s primary loss, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., announced Monday he had filed paperwork for a 2028 run for the House — or something else. ‘I filed with the [Federal Election Commission] for the 2028 House race. This allows me to raise funds to continue my political operations supporting my position as a current office holder and as a potential candidate for federal office,’” Massie wrote on X. ‘I haven’t made a final decision about which office to seek, if I run,’ he added. In an interview Sunday on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press,’ Massie declined to rule out a 2028 presidential bid.” (05/25/26)
- Laos: Rescuers race to free seven people trapped in flooded cave
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“Rescuers are racing against time to free seven people who have been trapped for nearly a week in a flooded cave in Laos. The seven were part of a group of villagers from the central province of Xaysomboun who had gone into the cave on Wednesday in search of gold and wildlife, but could not get out as rain and landslides blocked the cave’s entrance. Footage shared by the rescue groups show the cave divers crawling into the cave through narrow, muddy passageways that are almost completely flooded. Several experts involved in the dramatic rescue of a team of teenage footballers trapped deep inside a Thai cave back in 2018 are among those helping with the current rescue effort. A survivor who had managed to escape alerted the authorities about those still trapped, according to reports.” (05/26/26)
- Senegal: Ousted PM Sonko elected parliament speaker in challenge to President Faye
Source: France 24 [French state media]
“Senegal is mired in a deep political crisis after President Bassirou Diomaye Faye on Friday sacked the popular Ousmane Sonko and dissolved the government after months of tensions. Sonko’s election as parliament speaker comes a day after Faye named senior economist Ahmadou Al Aminou, former regional central bank official, as prime minister. … Faye essentially owes his position to Sonko, his one time mentor who would almost certainly have taken the top job had he not been barred from running in the last presidential election due to a defamation conviction. The two men have fallen out in recent months as Senegal battles public debt. Faye wants to discuss a new aid programme with the IMF, while Sonko prefers a domestic, sovereigntist approach.” (05/26/260
- France: Gisèle Pelicot “deeply shocked” by decision not to jail boys in rape case
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“French rape survivor Gisèle Pelicot has told the BBC she is ‘deeply shocked’ that three teenage boys have been spared custodial sentences over the rape of two girls in Hampshire. The girls, then aged 15 and 14, were raped in separate incidents in Fordingbridge in November 2024 and January 2025, by two 14-year-olds. Another boy, then 13, was also convicted for his involvement in the second attack. The judge had said last week he wanted to avoid criminalizing the ‘very young’ boys. The youth rehabilitation order sentences handed to the boys are being referred to the Court of Appeal by the attorney general. Pelicot said she ‘saluted the strength’ and courage of one of the girls for speaking out.” (05/26/26)
- The Triumph of the Libertarian-Hyphenates
Source: Chris’s Substack
by Chris Matthew Sciabarra“Libertarians are not unique in their diversity or their internal squabbles. Indeed, as a friend of mine once quipped, wherever there’s an ‘ism,’ there’s a schism — whether in religion, philosophy, or political thought. For example, socialism has long been an umbrella term for a diverse and often bitterly opposed group of thinkers and traditions …. And there’s even socialist overlap with libertarianism since figures associated with the latter, such as Benjamin Tucker, have identified with the former. Indeed, many anarchists and libertarian-socialists — from Proudhon to Emma Goldman — have inspired contemporary American libertarians. Zwolinski reminds us that the very term ‘libertarian’ was introduced by the French anarcho-communist Joseph Déjacque in the 1850s. … Internal squabbles have also been found among the followers of Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism.” (05/26/26)
https://chrismatthewsciabarra.substack.com/p/the-triumph-of-the-libertarian-hyphenates
- War With Iran, Phase Two: All Three Plausible Explanations Call for One Corrective Action
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp“So, here we are: Instead of taking his lumps, letting the war end, and hoping for an economic upturn before the midterm elections mangle his party’s present projects and future prospects, Trump is doubling down. There are three, and only three, plausible explanations: Explanation One is that he’s evil, hates America, and is doing his damnedest to destroy the US economy. … Explanation Two is that he’s stupid — whether by nature or due to his obvious cognitive decline — and just doesn’t know what he’s doing or understand its moral, political, or economic implications. … Explanation Three is that Trump — again, possibly due to the obvious cognitive decline he’s publicly and frequently displayed since before his second inauguration — isn’t in charge; the presidency is effectively controlled by other people who happen to be evildoers.” (05/26/26)
- When Our Word Is No Longer Good
Source: Antiwar.com
by Ron Paul“The pattern of media reports – based on White House leaks – that an agreement with Iran is almost completed has become predictable. Where once the markets fluctuated wildly (and some insiders made huge profits with the information), each time we hear that the deal is almost complete only to see it fall through, the markets barely move. It is dangerous to have a US Administration that no one in the US or the rest of the world believes.” (05/26/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/paul/2026/05/25/when-our-word-is-no-longer-good
- The Posterity Pact
Source: Underthrow
by Max Borders“The dead made promises on our behalf. We pay their debts, inherit their quarrels, and walk roads they laid and ruins they left. This is the ordinary condition of being alive. We arrive in a world built by the hands of the dead, which, for better or worse, is our inheritance. Some accept this fact without much thought. What we accept less readily is its mirroring — that we, too, will shape the world for others to inherit. Just as the dying left us an inheritance of gifts and debts, we will leave one, too.” (05/26/26)
- Ayn Rand Is Alive in Ankara
Source: Reason
by Selim Koru“Turkey’s major political traditions of the past two generations — Kemalist secular statism, political Islam, and ethnic nationalism — all subordinate the individual to a collective project in different ways. Rand is countercultural against all three, and yet she articulates something that life in Turkey has quietly become: more individualist, more disenchanted, more on the hustle. That is why her readers pop up in unexpected places, and why they have been multiplying for over half a century. Today, the political scene is more conducive to young readers of Rand than ever before.” (05/26/26)
- Spare Us the Selective Outrage
Source: American Greatness
by Victor Davis Hanson“Since October 7, we have been lectured nonstop about the supposedly singular sins of Israel. The campuses, the left-wing media, and the new Democratic Socialist officials, both federal and state, following the cue of student activists and professors from the Middle East, have painted Israel and their Jewish supporters as Nazis, fascists, and among the worst murderers in today’s bloody world. This is nonsensical. The medieval-style massacre of 1,200 Jews in their homes on October 7, during a time of peace, should have increased awareness of the existential dangers Israel faced. Instead, it spawned a gathering storm of antisemitism.” (05/26/26)
https://amgreatness.com/2026/05/26/spare-us-the-selective-outrage/
- Why the Ten Commandments Don’t Belong in Public Schools
Source: The Dispatch
by Michael A Helfand“There’s a reason so many conservative justices over the past 40 years have rejected the idea that the establishment clause prohibits only compelled religious exercise. If government is permitted to use its power, prestige, and resources to overwhelm citizens with government-preferred religious messages, it paves the way for the manipulation of religious conscience, especially when dealing with children in classrooms. Protecting the independence of religious conscience is a core constitutional commitment, expressed perhaps most famously by James Madison in his 1785 ‘Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments,’ where he insisted that ‘[t]he Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man.’ The First Amendment is allergic to religious orthodoxies. For this reason, requiring the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms crosses a fundamental constitutional line.” (05/26/26)
https://thedispatch.com/article/ten-commandments-religion-state-public-schools/
- The Danger of an Unexamined Status Quo
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Russ Gonnering“Medical school always had its own set of peculiar struggles, as, I suppose, does everything. Certainly, Basic Training in the military is an eye-opener. What makes medical school unique is the profound contrast of the reality with the ideal.” (05/26/26)
https://brownstone.org/articles/the-danger-of-an-unexamined-status-quo/
- To Understand Where America Is Heading, Read Sports
Source: TomDispatch
by Robert Lipsyte“When Chinese leaders claim that the American empire is in decline, I immediately assume their analysts are decoding dispatches from ESPN, The Athletic, and columnist Shams Charania. After all, it’s in sportswriting, I’ve come to think, that the songs of the canary in the all-American coal mine couldn’t be clearer. If the games we play and watch reflect our past and present lives, then the coverage and commentary about them may help predict our future. American sportswriters have been cheerleaders for empire since the early twentieth century, when Bat Masterson decided that shooting people in Dodge City wasn’t fulfilling enough for a man of his talent and ambition. Yes, that Bat Masterson. He came East and, as a boxing columnist for the New York Morning Telegraph, became a new sheriff in the emerging industry I’ve come to call SportsWorld.” (05/26/26)
https://tomdispatch.com/a-short-history-of-sportswriting-from-bat-masterson-to-shams-charania/
- Is deflation bad for the economy?
Source: Cobden Centre
by Dr. Frank Shostak“It is maintained by most experts that a general fall in prices labelled as deflation is ‘bad news’ for the economy for it postpones people’s buying of goods and services, which in turn undermines investment in plant and machinery. All this sets in motion an economic slump. Moreover, as the slump further depresses the prices of goods and services, this intensifies the pace of economic decline. … The emergence of deflation is always good news to the economy since it is in response to the liquidation of various activities that caused the erosion of the savings generation process.” (05/26/26)
https://www.cobdencentre.org/2026/05/is-deflation-bad-for-the-economy-2/
- Trump’s SCOTUS appeal targets #MeToo injustice that’s warping our courts
Source: New York Post
by Betsy McCaughey“When the accusation is sexual assault or rape, the rights of the accused go out the window. President Trump knows that firsthand — and he’s asking the US Supreme Court to remedy it. Prosecutors and plaintiffs’ lawyers can drag in character assassins who know nothing about the alleged assault, but instead make their own claims — without proof — that they too were victims of the accused, often years or even decades earlier. That’s what happened to Trump in the E. Jean Carroll case, and why he’s appealing the jury’s decision. Last week, the justices delayed for the 11th time answering whether they will take up E. Jean Carroll v. Trump.” (05/26/26)
https://nypost.com/2026/05/26/opinion/trumps-supreme-court-appeal-targets-metoo-injustice/
- The Dumpster Fire of the Vanities
Source: Paul Krugman
by Paul Krugman“Outside the MAGA bubble, Americans are increasingly seeing Trump as the loser he is. He has failed on every front. Manufacturing employment is down, inflation is outpacing wages, consumer sentiment is at a record low, mortgage rates are up. Trump’s war of choice has led to utter humiliation. According to current polls, Americans are giving Trump extremely low approval ratings, both overall and on every major issue — even border security …. Inside the MAGA fantasy bubble, however, Trump’s reign is hailed, almost literally, as the Second Coming.” (05/26/26)
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-dumpster-fire-of-the-vanities
- The Normalization Distraction
Source: Eunomia
by Daniel Larison“The president’s attempt to get more states to establish diplomatic ties with Israel will be no more successful than the criminal war he started.” (05/26/26)
https://daniellarison.substack.com/p/the-normalization-distraction
- It’s Not Okay To Join The Military
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone“Polly on Twitter asks, ‘Is there a pejorative term for military like what pig is for cops?’ Dear Polly, No, but there should be. We need to start stigmatizing that shit. It is not okay to be a stormtrooper for the western empire. It is not honorable. It is not worthy of respect. If you are a westerner who is considering joining the military, you should choose a different career path instead. Don’t thank soldiers for their ‘service.’ Don’t play along with the lie that your nation’s soldiers fight for your rights or your freedom. It only encourages more people to join the military when you do that. It’s irresponsible and unethical.” (05/26/26)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/05/26/its-not-okay-to-join-the-military/
- The Slow Disappearance of Cash in Europe
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Cláudia Ascensão Nunes“Under the guise of fighting money laundering, the EU is making anonymous economic activity progressively harder. Starting in July 2027, Europeans will no longer be allowed to pay businesses or professionals more than €10,000 in cash (roughly $11,500). Any transaction above €3,000 (just under $3,500) will require mandatory customer identification. This is another step toward political uniformity across Europe, stripping countries of autonomy and subtly pushing citizens toward the digital euro. This measure, part of the new Anti-Money Laundering Regulation (AMLR), applies directly to all Member States. Under the pretext of fighting money laundering, Brussels is imposing yet another form of forced harmonization that ignores the principle of subsidiarity: the idea that decisions should be made at the level closest to citizens and national governments.” (05/26/26)
https://fee.org/articles/the-slow-disappearance-of-cash-in-europe/
- Cultural Conservatives, Labour, and a New Realignment
Source: Law & Liberty
by Helen Dale“Earlier this month—on May 7th—British voters put Labour to the sword in elections across England, Wales, and Scotland. The results are indicative of a political realignment, one that British political historian Stephen Davies forecasted more than a decade ago, and which he sets out in thoughtful detail in his latest book, The Great Realignment: Why the New Right is Here to Stay.” (05/26/26)
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/cultural-conservatives-labour-and-a-new-realignment/
- A Century of Progressive Apartheid
Source: Law & Liberty
by Paul Moreno“This year marks the centennial of zoning in the United States, when the Supreme Court upheld comprehensive municipal land-use restrictions over the claims of property owners. The decision, Euclid v. Ambler Realty, was a milestone in the progressives’ campaign to overcome constitutional impediments to their plans for social engineering. In the ensuing century, zoning fundamentally altered the geography of American life, turning what had just become an urban-majority nation into a suburban one. Critics on both the libertarian right and woke left condemn zoning as a back-door version of apartheid, a stealthy way to keep immigrants and blacks out of ‘desirable’ neighborhoods.” (05/26/26)
- A Sweeping Theory of Everything Is Revolutionizing the Democratic Party
Source: The Atlantic
by Jonathan Chait“‘I helped set in motion a revolution that aims to rebuild something like a true liberal democracy in America,’ Barry C. Lynn wrote two years ago in Harper’s. The claim is notable less for being impossibly grandiose than for being more or less correct. Lynn is the intellectual godfather of what is now known as the neo-Brandeisian movement, which identifies corporate consolidation as the singular, villainous force behind everything that has gone wrong in the United States. … The effects of his revolution on the party and its ability to govern are far greater than many intellectuals, politicians, and staffers seem to grasp. To attribute all problems to a single cause is to reject every solution but one.” (05/26/26)
- Could Inflation Help Explain Falling Birth Rates?
Source: The Daily Economy
by Vincent Geloso“Jeffery Degner’s recent book makes the case that monetary policy reshapes time preference, and with it, decisions about family formation.” (05/26/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/could-inflation-help-explain-falling-birth-rates/
- Trump understands what Washington politicians forgot: Cuba is a major threat to America
Source: Fox News
by Carlos Trujillo & Alberto Martinez“On May 20, 1902, the Cuban flag flew for the first time over an independent country. One hundred and twenty-four years later, the Cuban people are still not free. Every president before Donald Trump either did nothing about Cuba, did too little, or did too much for the regime. Trump is the first to recognize that the regime is a threat to America itself and to resolve to confront it once and for all. That his predecessors failed to do so is not only the Cuban people’s tragedy. It is ours. Cuba’s communist regime is a designated State Sponsor of Terrorism. It ran two of the most damaging espionage operations against the United States in modern memory. It was the intelligence backbone of the Maduro narco-state. It has served as a coordinating hub for the migration flows and drug routes flooding American communities. The suffering Havana exports has cost American lives.” (05/26/26)
- More Iran war? There goes the neighborhood, and global economy.
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Karthik Sankaran“For all the uncertainty about what will happen next on the military and diplomatic front in the Iran war, there is certainty about what has already happened on the economic front. And it is not good.” (05/26/26)
- Pope Leo’s unfashionable universalism
Source: UnHerd
by Sohrab Ahmari“A two-millennia-old institution with one foot in the Roman Empire challenges Silicon Valley’s masters of AI and automation to do better. That’s the generic read on Pope Leo XIV’s debut encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, dramatized by photos from the Vatican of the pontiff shaking hands with Anthropic co-founder Christopher Olah. And that’s true enough: ‘artificial intelligence’ is right there in the encyclical’s subtitle, and many of its 245 paragraphs are devoted to the topic. Yet Magnifica Humanitas only incidentally concerns the promise and peril of the AI revolution. A closer examination reveals that Leo’s ultimate project is nothing less than a defense of moral and political universalism — the collective struggle for ‘a universal truth about the good, knowable by human reason,’ as the pope puts it — just when universal reason is menaced on every side by various irrationalisms.” (05/26/26)
- What the marriage and family nostalgia is really about
Source: Los Angeles Times
by Stephanie Coontz“I’ve spent much of my career as a historian criticizing any idealization of 1950s marriages. Domestic violence and child abuse were much more common then than today. It was perfectly legal for a man to forcibly rape his wife. And depression among homemakers was so widespread that by the end of the decade, physicians had labeled it the ‘housewife’s syndrome.’ … But I now believe I’ve been too dismissive of such nostalgia. The sense of loss that underlies it is not ‘all in people’s heads.’ Instead, I’ve come to see it as an example of what physicians call ‘referred pain,’ like when a problem in one part of the body is experienced as pain elsewhere. So too, I think, much of the pain we feel in our social and family relations originates in a deeper part of the economy and the body politic.” (05/26/26)
- The French Rejection
Source: Washington Monthly
by Gillen Tener Martin“Why Emmanuel Macron can’t convince his voters to rearm.” (05/26/26)
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2026/05/26/the-french-rejection-macron-defense/
- Would Hasan Piker Steal A Car?
Source: EconLog
by Joy Buchanan“In a controversial conversation platformed by the New York Times and recently discussed in The Atlantic, streamer Hasan Piker implied that he might steal a car if it carried no consequences. In the interview, author Jia Tolentino also casually admits to shoplifting lemons from Whole Foods. Although petty theft is common, the interview clip spread quickly because the justification for looting felt oddly assertive. Piker referred to the iconic anti-piracy campaign that sought to use moral vibes (rather than rational arguments) against taking physical property to convince people to further control their impulses and not copy music without paying. The anti-piracy clip ‘You Wouldn’t Steal a Car’ indicates an implicit assumption from 2004 that American society was broadly agreed on the stability of physical property. In other words, most Americans do not think ‘property is theft.'” (05/26/26)
https://www.econlib.org/econlog/would-hasan-piker-steal-a-car
- Reason Roundtable, 05/26/26
Source: Reason
“Does Anyone Know What’s Happening in Iran?” (05/26/26)
https://reason.com/podcast/2026/05/26/does-anyone-know-whats-happening-in-iran/
- Trump Watch, 05/26/26
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
“U.S. Terrorism Against Cuba.” (05/26/26)
- Rising, 05/26/26
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave gives his radar on Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt claiming that homeless people in LA are not truly homeless, but rather choose to live on the street because of their drug addiction.” (05/26/26)
- The Bryan Hyde Show, 05/26/26
Source: The Bryan Hyde Show
“Thomas Massie may have primaried by the DC swamp but he still has seven months to continue holding the uniparty accountable.” (05/26/26)
- The Headlines, 05/26/26
Source: New York Times
“White House Shakes Up Green Card Policy, and the Pope Takes On A.I.” (05/26/26)
- The Good Fight, 05/26/26
Source: Yascha Mounk
“H.W. Brands on the Making of George Washington.” (05/26/26)
- Ron Paul Liberty Report, 05/26/26
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“Israel’s Gaza-ization of Lebanon.” (05/26/26)
- The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 05/26/26
Source: The New Republic
“Trump Tirades Take Unhinged Turn as His Epic Poll Collapse Rattles GOP.” (05/26/26)
- Advisory Opinions, 05/26/26
Source: The Dispatch
“SCOTUS Through the Decades | Interview: Nina Totenberg.” (05/26/26)